Electron Beam Evaporation

E-beam evaporation

Electron Beam Deposition – Single or Double – Multiheart crucibles

Polyteknik has delivered various sized e-beam deposition systems for both high-end industry and university R&D. A combination of highly skilled process, software and mechanical engineers secures you the most optimum e-beam solution. High uniformity and difficult to evaporate materials are easily controlled with our newest Cryosoft3 software.

Polyteknik offers:

Full process control and advanced data logging

Advanced control of e-beam sweep patterns

High uniformity coatings down to 1-2%

Multilayer coatings

High rate depositions for e.g. PV applications

Implementation in Roll-to-roll process

WHAT IS E-BEAM EVAPORATION ?

E-beam evaporation is a process similar to thermal evaporation i.e. a source material is heated above its boiling/sublimation temperature and evaporated to form a film on the surfaces that is stroke by the evaporated atoms. This evaporation method has just like thermal evaporation a pore ability to cover steps which also makes this method ideal for lift-off processes. A noticeable advantage of e-beam evaporation over thermal evaporation is the possibility to add a larger amount of energy into the source material. This yields a higher density film with an increased adhesion to the substrate. Because the electron beam only heats the source material and not the entire crucible, a lower degree of contamination from the crucible will be present than in the case of thermal evaporation. By using a multiple crucible E-beam gun, several different materials can be deposited without breaking the vacuum.

The E-beam evaporation process

With the source material placed in the crucible a filament below the crucible is heated. By applying a large voltage, electrons are drawn from the filament and focused as a beam on the source material by several bending magnets. The beam is swept across the surface of the source material to heat all of the material.